LS bank suspended

[layoneil]

You think endgame is bad now? Wait till more then 10% of the players are doing it so they can make their credit card and car payments.

that's how my friend use to play Lineage II.

[Khamsin]

Here's a plan!

Ban IGE mules a bunch to drive up the price of gil.

Sell your gil to IGE for high prices.

Ban IGE before they can sell it all, driving up the price of gil even more.

Sell more of your gil to IGE at even higher prices.

Ban IGE before they can sell it all, driving up the price of gil even more.

Sell more of your gil to IGE at even higher prices.

And so forth.

It's flawless!

[Kwijiboe]

I skimmed most of the posts, but I don't see the big deal.

At the airport, I get stopped at check-in because my name is on a terrorist watch list. Now why would I freak out unless I was a terrorist? They tell me, "One second." And type in my information. They checked me, and later found out I wasn't a terrorist, omg. This happens to me everytime I go through airport check-in though.

All the people calling GM idiots are hypocrites, they're doing exactly what people have been asking for. Sure, it's witchhunts. But you forget that they are actually catching RMT this way.

And hey, your ls leader/bank holder could be selling gil for some pocket change. But yea.. that sort of thing never happens, right?

[Byrd]

The most logical solution then is to reduce or eliminate the supply of gil, so that the demand never has to wane. If there is no supply, the demand is irrelevant.

The supply will exist as long as demand does. Don't kid yourself, you can ban all the gil-holding or gil-generating accounts you want, but when there's a buck to be made on gil, getting rid of these accounts are only temporary setbacks, as new accounts will be made to generate and sell gil, and they can be back to full functionality within one or two weeks.

Even when they aren't at full functonality, they just jack the price they buy gil for up higher, and legimiate players suddenly become everything they used to crusade against and sell their gil to IGE for a nice profit. The gilbuyers are forced to pay higher prices for it, but most will likely to continue to do so. Once IGE is back to fully functioning, IGE doesn't need to buy from normal players at inflated prices anymore, and prices come back down.

Anyone else ever think that, in this day and age, RMT is a sign of a healthy MMORPG? A weak or dying MMORPG won't warrant IGE or other companies spending tons of money on keeping their gil/gold/whatever stocked and their accounts active.

[aurik]

As I said before, you don't tend a garden by pulling the weeds once and then letting them take over.

Here's what I would suggest be done to minimize the gil selling problem:

Right now, the fixed cost to make a gil selling toon is rather low; you buy the game once ($60 for the game and all relevant expansions) you level the toon once (2 weeks of shiftwork with plvlers for 6 accounts?) and then you farm up 100-200 million every month to sell.

Repeatedly banning accounts that sell gil will have a major impact on gil prices because, in addition to destroying the gil on those accounts,
1) time that was spent levelling the characters is lost and must be re-spent
2) CD keys for new accounts must be purchased.

If you catch them often, you will repeatedly incur upon them the rather-large fixed cost of starting up a new character. Quickly, mass quantities of gil will be extremely expensive, as the only "cheap" gil would be gil that was casually sold, by quitting players eg, which is generally not that much.

The second prong of this attack is to repeatedly wiped IGE bank mules. IGE (and similar companies) pays out a lot of money for gil, which then they flip for a big markup.

Let's say they mark the gil up 100%. That is, they pay $100 for X gil and sell it for $200.

If they buy $500,000 worth of gil, then they expect to sell it for $1,000,000. The cost of them doing business on this scale (paying employees, paypal fees, etc) might be $250,000, which means they profit $250,000. However, if you ban a meager 20% of the gil they purchase, they now only have $800,000 income, leading to a net of only $50,000 -- that is, you have reduced their profit by 80% by catching only 20% of their business. The only response they have to this is increasing their margin. Increasing their margin means rising prices means less people buy gil which is what we want!

Also, by repeatedly banning the RMT toons, you crank up the source cost of gil. By banning IGE bank mules and obliterating stock, you force them to raise their margins. Both of these actions mean really high gil prices, which means only really-hardcore RMTers will buy; identify who these are and ban them.

That's a nice idyllic theory. Hardly practical though, no matter how many numbers you throw into the mix. A gilselling account doesn't get banned until it becomes a problem which has already done its damage. There is no "nip it in the bud" method here, especially when it comes to the risk of banning legit players.

Gil selling accounts have to do a lot of "damage" before they pay off the time and money invested in the characters. Even if they "break even" in the long run, why would they bother to when they could just go play WoW and make more money?

If you thought RMT was only "breaking even" with the current bans in both FFXI and WoW, that the problem would have already been solved?

Sorry guy, you can't have it both ways. You either play a game where you run the risk the being banned for absolutely nothing other than looking suspicious, or you play a game where you grit your teeth through your gilselling competition. There is no middle ground.

Who said they're breaking even? I still see the same RMT characters farming sky, amemet, cassie, alkyoneus, etcetcetcetcetc every day. They haven't been hurt at all by the IGE bank bannings. As far as I can tell, they're making a good buck and having fun on the side in FFXI, because the GMs don't touch them.

I can't speak on the efficacy of the IGE bank bannings, other than every time they make an announcement luxury item prices drop. But I can tell you that if they want to slow down the RMT in FFXI, SE has to be more aggressive with toons that actually do the 24/7 item farming and attempt to monetize non-tradeable goods.

[Jeryhn]

I can't speak on the efficacy of the IGE bank bannings, other than every time they make an announcement luxury item prices drop. But I can tell you that if they want to slow down the RMT in FFXI, SE has to be more aggressive with toons that actually do the 24/7 item farming and attempt to monetize non-tradeable goods.

I completely agree. To get rid of gilsellers, SE has to be more aggressive.

The side effect of being more aggressive in the crusade against RMT is that it becomes like, as Kwijiboe called it, a witchhunt. And in witchhunts, not just witches get burned at the stake. Innocent players get their linkshell bank accounts, normally set up for security, banned because of the suspicion of a level 1 mule with a fuckton of gil.

Again, you either adapt to the inconvenience of gilsellers, or you adapt to the the possible inconvenience of yourself, or your linkshell's bank, getting banned.

[Septimus]

I skimmed most of the posts, but I don't see the big deal.

At the airport, I get stopped at check-in because my name is on a terrorist watch list. Now why would I freak out unless I was a terrorist? They tell me, "One second." And type in my information. They checked me, and later found out I wasn't a terrorist, omg. This happens to me everytime I go through airport check-in though.

All the people calling GM idiots are hypocrites, they're doing exactly what people have been asking for. Sure, it's witchhunts. But you forget that they are actually catching RMT this way.

And hey, your ls leader/bank holder could be selling gil for some pocket change. But yea.. that sort of thing never happens, right?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with a company taking actions against people without fully investigating matters. It will be a bit more than an inconvenience when people can not get their linkshell mules back and are screwed out of hundreds of millions of gil and items that were gathered by the group's hard work.

It is all well and good that they are catching RMT, but they are also hurting innocent people in the process.

[Jeryhn]

I skimmed most of the posts, but I don't see the big deal.

At the airport, I get stopped at check-in because my name is on a terrorist watch list. Now why would I freak out unless I was a terrorist? They tell me, "One second." And type in my information. They checked me, and later found out I wasn't a terrorist, omg. This happens to me everytime I go through airport check-in though.

All the people calling GM idiots are hypocrites, they're doing exactly what people have been asking for. Sure, it's witchhunts. But you forget that they are actually catching RMT this way.

And hey, your ls leader/bank holder could be selling gil for some pocket change. But yea.. that sort of thing never happens, right?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with a company taking actions against people without fully investigating matters. It will be a bit more than an inconvenience when people can not get their linkshell mules back and are screwed out of hundreds of millions of gil and items that were gathered by the group's hard work.

It is all well and good that they are catching RMT, but they are also hurting innocent people in the process.

Ding ding ding! This is why we will never be rid of RMT.

Adapt, or quit.
And if you go to another MMO, they will follow, and the cycle will continue.

If you still can't adapt, you should be more focused on avoiding a Darwin Award than being concerned about RMT in your online game.

[BRP]

In reality, no one needs to care about people buying gil. It hurts the pricing of items a decent amount, but its not something that is completely ruining the game. What SUCKS is the fact that the way these companies are making gil, the 24/7 chinese farmers that are preventing players, or at least making it A LOT HARDER, to do things like getting O-kotes and a set for Byakko.

SE is attacking the smaller problem, which is hard to do and makes a smaller difference, compared to the bigger problem, which is obvious and running the game.

[Kwijiboe]

The topic is suspension, not expulsion.

The topic is up in the air until the account is permanently banned or reactivated.

I mentioned the airport thing, because I was told I was on a terrorist watch list, but in the end I wasn't a terrorist. I was held back 10-15 minutes for them to do some necessary procedures, they needed more info, so I gave it to them. The end result is what matters, I don't care that they stopped me-- because they're trying to insure bad things like 9/11 won't happen again.

Anything more than 20 million gil on a ls bank is ridiculous, IMO.. If it were more than that, I can see it easily being seen as a RMT account. The thing is, we can't argue any which way at the moment until we find out what happens.

[Insanecyclone]

Ding ding ding! This is why we will never be rid of RMT.

Adapt, or quit.
And if you go to another MMO, they will follow, and the cycle will continue.

Or you could quit MMO's in general but thats crazy talk

[Jeryhn]

The topic is suspension, not expulsion.

The topic is up in the air until the account is permanently banned or reactivated.

How many accounts do you know about that only get suspensions as opposed to permabans when it comes to being forcibly removed from the game for being suspected of RMT?

In reality, no one needs to care about people buying gil. It hurts the pricing of items a decent amount, but its not something that is completely ruining the game. What SUCKS is the fact that the way these companies are making gil, the 24/7 chinese farmers that are preventing players, or at least making it A LOT HARDER, to do things like getting O-kotes and a set for Byakko.

Yea, it does, and it sucks. SE could slap on the RARE/EX tag on Autumnstone though, and all the other Sky triggers, as a viable solution. The only thing it requires is for players to put up with the change.

You gotta give a little to get what you want. Players aren't usually willing to do this in most cases, although I personally see it being feasible here.

Or you could quit MMO's in general but thats crazy talk

lol yes.

[MisterBob]

Yea, it does, and it sucks. SE could slap on the RARE/EX tag on Autumnstone though, and all the other Sky triggers, as a viable solution. The only thing it requires is for players to put up with the change.

Wouldn't do shit. RMT would just sell you the drop on the spot, just like they do with the Haidate. Ulli's Aery is crowded enough that they'll always find a buyer.

[Jeryhn]

Yea, it does, and it sucks. SE could slap on the RARE/EX tag on Autumnstone though, and all the other Sky triggers, as a viable solution. The only thing it requires is for players to put up with the change.

Wouldn't do shit. RMT would just sell you the drop on the spot, just like they do with the Haidate. Ulli's Aery is crowded enough that they'll always find a buyer.

There's that too.
Oh well, I guess.

[BRP]

I'm talking about banning the obvious gil farmers. People who do nothing but farm the game.

[XxSlusherxx]

What makes this really fucking stupid is the mule is named Solsticels, after the linkshell, in order to pimp what we've been killing lately.

[aurik]

Solsti-sells?! zomg rmt

[Aurin]

When SE banned the "3,000 RMT Accounts" or w/e my mule that had most of my money on it (over 300M) was banned on the charge of being a RMT Bank account...

[epigram]

That's why I put my gil on a level 30 mule :/

[darkdeath]

Aurin your sig faking rocks XD